


Heavy Lifting

by heartofcathedrals



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Occurs right after episode titled "Currents", anxiety attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 01:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofcathedrals/pseuds/heartofcathedrals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is the last to leave Derek’s waterlogged apartment that night. He stands in the shadows, hoping the werewolf won’t notice even though he knows it’s impossible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heavy Lifting

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to my Tumblr friend, murrmir. She is an amazing artist and has done some awesome artwork for my other fanfics.
> 
> Story takes place after season 3 episode "Currents".

Stiles is the last to leave Derek’s waterlogged apartment that night. He stands in the shadows, hoping the werewolf won’t notice even though he knows it’s impossible. 

“You should go,” Derek calls out as he takes the stairs to his bedroom, steps slow and drawn out, and Stiles has been right where Derek is enough times to know what the pull in his voice means. 

“I should, but I’m not going to,” Stiles calls back as he steps into Derek’s view from behind a support beam, careful to keep on the dry boards Boyd and Isaac laid out just a few hours earlier. 

Derek stops as he nears the top, but he doesn’t turn, refuses to show Stiles his face. “Stop being so stubborn,” comes out as a mumble. 

“You could say the same for yourself.” There’s a beat as the two stand in the near darkness, light from the moon coming through the grey-tinted windows and reflecting off of the water that fills the first floor of the apartment. 

“Why are you doing this?” Derek finally asks. 

“Because you think you want to be alone right now, but the second I leave you’re going to wish someone had stayed.” 

Derek huffs, but Stiles senses that it’s fake. That maybe it would have turned into a sob had the werewolf not stopped himself. 

“I know you know what I’m talking about.” 

“If that was true, then why would I tell you to go?” 

“Because you’re stubborn,” Stiles explains, pushing his hands into his pockets and lifting his shoulders as he sighs. “But I am too, so I’m not going anywhere.” 

Derek doesn’t have it in him to argue. He’s exhausted in the same way he was after the fire and moving to New York. It’s like every cell in his body is on fire and sleep is the only thing that will make it stop. For a second, though, one that he’d forever deny, he thinks that maybe having someone there, in the same room, might be nice. 

It’s how Stiles ends up in Derek’s bedroom just moments later, seated at the foot of his bed while he tries not to watch him pull off his sopping shirt and pants. He attempts to distract himself, his right foot tapping nervously as he pulls out his phone to check the time. There’s a text from his father. Just checking in, he says, and Stiles texts him back with some excuse about sleeping at Scott’s. He’s about to put his phone in his pocket when another message comes through: We need to talk. 

Yeah. That’s not going to happen. Not tonight, at least, especially since he’s picturing the confused look his father was giving him as he went to open his mouth and explain the crazy, twisted mess that his life became since Scott became a freaking werewolf. As if his father would actually believe him; Stiles isn’t exactly known for always telling the truth. He tries to find the irony in the fact that his father always warned him against lying with the “Boy Who Cried Wolf” story. 

He sends one word, tomorrow, and turns the device off, looking up as Derek finally pulls a dry t-shirt over his head. 

“You don’t have to say anything…,” Stiles starts, trailing off to see if Derek, who is refusing to make eye contact with him, will add on. He waits, but the room stays silent. “I, uh, didn’t want to just leave you…here…alone…after, you know, and…yeah.” 

Derek sits on what Stiles decides must be his usual side of the bed and turns the lamp out, the two there in the dark for a few seconds before the alpha’s sudden panicked breaths fill the small, quiet room. Stiles keeps his distance for a moment, thinking of how Scott used to make the same sounds during the beginning of an asthma attack. He makes those sounds too sometimes, when his anxiety has him by the throat, but he still can’t decide if he should hold back or intervene. 

Because how many nights has his father sat up with him, trying to break him from the torment of the anxiety coursing through his body, only for Stiles to fight any form of bodily contact? It is a relentless beast, one he knows he can’t beat alone once his muscles tighten and chest grows heavy, heart beating so fast he sometimes wonders if it is possible for it to explode. The first time it had happened his father had pulled him into his arms, Stiles’ back to his chest, and held him tight. He’d tried to fight it, his father’s hold making it harder for him to breathe. From then on, it didn’t matter what had sparked it or how long it lasted; his father always appeared and cocooned him until every last muscle in his body relaxed. 

He’d wait what felt like hours for that wave of calm to blanket his body, the moment where he was able to breathe freely once again. He wants that for Derek right now, but he can’t bring himself to hug the burly werewolf, so he sits blinking in the dark, listening to the one person he thought wasn’t capable of breaking down like this become a mess of tears, snot, and fast, forceful breaths. 

He knows he will probably get pushed away, might even get hurt, but he finally allows his instincts to kick in, starting with just one finger falling atop of Derek’s. The werewolf’s hand jumps slightly before it stills, Derek’s sniffles turning into gasps as he tries to regulate himself. 

Stiles slides the rest of his hand over Derek’s and grips it somewhat tightly, trying to figure out his next move. He refuses to spew clichés: that everything will be okay, that he should stop crying, that talking about it will help. Thankfully, his father never whispers such phrases into his ear, knows that the anxiety is larger than words. Instead, he soothes him with lyrics from his favorite Bob Dylan songs, the ones they listen to in his patrol car on slow nights. The soft, soothing melodies help, but he thinks that maybe Derek prefers quiet. 

Scott’s voice appears in Stiles’ head: I read somewhere online that human contact can help with pain. He takes a breath and slowly shifts closer and closer to the werewolf until the side of his body finally connects with Derek’s. He wants to say something, but the words swirl around in his head and he can’t manage to focus. Suddenly, there’s a head on his shoulder and Stiles just stills, back stiffening against the weight. 

He was not expecting Derek to be so…mushy? Is that the word? 

“Please don’t go,” Derek whisper-sobs. 

“I won’t,” he promises, squeezing his hand. 

“I should have n-never changed him. None of this would even have happened. I’m s-so _stupid_ ,” he sobs, and Stiles can tell his nose is clogging. He can’t see in the dark, though, assumes that Derek doesn’t even own a box of tissues, so he lets it go. 

“You’re not stupid,” he tries. 

“I just w-wanted a f-family,” he cries. “Boyd was my f-family and I l-let him down.” 

Stiles doesn’t stop Derek, just lets him cry it out, the werewolf gasping between sentences. He knows that this is what needs to happen, even if it’s painful. 

“I c-can’t b-breathe,” he sobs, breaths hitching in his throat. 

“Yes, you can,” Stiles soothes. “Close your eyes and try to match my breathing.” 

“It should h-have been me,” he whimpers, gasping. “It should have been me!” 

“That’s not true,” Stiles whispers. “What happened isn’t your fault.” 

“Y-yes…it i-is,” Derek argues, but he can barely get the words out now that he’s deep in the attack. “H-he…B-boyd…t-trusted me,” he blubbers. 

Stiles gently tips Derek down towards the pillows and lays himself directly against his back, one arm wrapping around so that his hand is on the werewolf’s stomach. His breaths continue to hitch as he curls into a ball, Stiles’ heart aching as he moves his hand so that it’s laced between one of Derek’s. 

“Hey, Mr. Tambourine man, play a song for me. I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to,” he starts, hoping that Derek doesn’t think he’s crazy. He hears the gasping slow, though, is surprised when his sobbing turns into sniffles and he lets his grip on Stiles’ hand lessen. “Hey, Mr. Tambourine man, play a song for me,” he continues once he knows that the song is helping. “In the jingle-jangle morning I’ll come following you.” 

As he sings the next verse, Stiles wonders who, if anyone, was there to comfort him the day of the fire. Laura was off in New York, he knew, and probably couldn’t get a flight home until the next day. Had he really gone through it all alone? 

He suddenly remembers his parents talking in the kitchen the morning after, his father having just walked in the door from work. Stiles was only 10 years old but still curious as ever, and he had listened intently while pretending to be busy with the box of Trix on the table in front of him. 

“I had to be the one to tell him, Katherine,” his father whispered. “Poor kid was trying so hard to be okay. He nodded at me when I asked if he understood what I’d said and then he just broke down.” His father sighed heavily, exhaustion evident in the way he rubbed his eyes. “I was going to let him spend the night here, but social services said no, so I stayed with him at the hospital. Kid latched on and something in me just wouldn’t let him go.” 

“He sang to you, didn’t he?” Stiles whispers when he finishes the song, once he’s sure that Derek’s breathing is finally soft and even and indicative of sleep. He doesn’t expect to hear an answer, yet he refuses to move even though his arm over Derek has fallen asleep. Because through all of the bashings of his head into the steering wheel of his Jeep and being pushed up against walls by his jacket, Stiles feels a connection to Derek that he doesn’t have with anyone else. It’s unspoken, just like the night when the kanima’s serum paralyzed them and they couldn’t get words out during the first few minutes. He knows loss, feels it on his shoulders every single day, and he knows Derek does too. Heavy lifting, his father had always called it when he’d drank himself into a stupor and would talk to Stiles’ mother like she was right across the kitchen table from him. 

He lets Derek sleep, takes the burden off of him so that he can have a few hours’ peace, thinking, _knowing_ , that if their roles were reversed he’d do the same. Because heavy lifting, whether acknowledged or not, is one hell of a battle to fight alone, and it’s something Stiles doesn’t have to talk about with Derek for both of them understand. Eventually he lets his own eyes close and allows the warmth radiating from Derek to lull him to sleep, “Mr. Tambourine Man” playing softly in the back of his mind. 


End file.
